


Here For My Ten Thirty

by ProfessorFlimflam



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: UNIT, health and safety, silliness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-28
Updated: 2017-07-28
Packaged: 2018-12-08 02:23:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11636976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProfessorFlimflam/pseuds/ProfessorFlimflam
Summary: UNIT's annual Health and Safety inspection is interrupted by the sound of the TARDIS materialising, and Kate is not best pleased...





	Here For My Ten Thirty

Kate Stewart is having a health and safety nightmare. Specifically, she is having a nightmare visit from Health and Safety, who are demanding to see risk assessments for the everyday activities of UNIT, despite there being no such thing as “everyday” in the world she inhabits, and no way of mitigating the risks she and her team face. In fact, risk is about the only thing she can guarantee as an everyday activity.

Health and Safety do not know this. They have no idea what UNIT does, or what it is for. As far as they understand it (which is not at all), UNIT is a counter-terrorism intelligence gathering outfit, and the pen pusher they have sent to review procedures can't see why producing risk assessments is posing such a problem. Kate is eager to reassure him that life at UNIT is so dull, so tedious, so utterly predictable that the greatest risk she faces is a paper cut, and barring the mandatory wearing of nitrile gloves, there isn’t a great deal she can do to reduce it.

She has endured PAT testing (“That? Oh, that’s just… an electric fly swatter. You know, from one of those gadget shops. Yes, it’s got quite a kick, hasn't it!”), VDU assessments (”I can assure you, we _do_ need this many screens”) and now these sodding risk assessments. All she has to do is to persuade Bernard Beige that every day is like the day before, no surprises, no unforeseen alarms: just your average, boring workaday office. Which is why she is so particularly displeased to hear the asthmatic wheeze of the TARDIS materialising in her office, where she has left Osgood to make sure that Bernard doesn’t find anything he shouldn’t.

Bernard’s pen is hovering over the form, ready to sign them off as officially boring and safe, when he hesitates at the sound.

“Air con,” Kate says with a bland smile.

“Hmm, sounds a bit erratic. I wonder if I’d better -”

“No need!” Kate’s tone is just a little too bright. “All signed off by the electrician - look, here’s the paperwork.” She waves a sheaf of papers under his nose, offering it to him in such a way that he is forced to turn his back to the office. Nothing to put a bureaucrat off the scent like paperwork, she thinks. His pen returns to the dotted line, and he is just making his mark when the office door bursts open, and a wild figure careers into the room. Osgood is behind him, fidgeting with the ends of her scarf and making frantic, apologetic eye contact with Kate.

“Doctor!” She quickly extemporises. “You - you’re early for our appointment. I wasn’t expecting you until ten thirty. I’ve got my hands a bit full at the moment - would you wait in my office for now?” Kate hustles him back into the office, shutting the door for a moment. “What the hell are you doing? I’ve _just_ got him to sign us off as Health and Safety compliant, and you lurch in like a drunk Slitheen. Sit there and keep your mouth shut if you can mange that for five minutes?” The Doctor sits meekly in her leather chair and makes a gesture of zipping his mouth shut, locking it and tossing away the key.

Osgood looks at him ”Are you alright? You look different - you’ve got a sort of a glow to you. Are you - do Time Lords… could you be _pregnant_?”

His mouth still zipped, he merely shakes his head, and makes an expression neither woman can quite decipher.

“Osgood, don’t be ridiculous. Just make sure he stays put.” She swings round to jab a finger at the Doctor. “I’ll deal with _you_ later!”

She steps back into the room, a smile plastered on her face, and pushes the form back under Bernard’s hand, still suspended midair, the pen dangling from his limp fingers.

“Nothing to worry about,” she says. “Just a little mix up with time. Times. There we go, all done! Super. Thank you so much, look forward to seeing you again - same time next year?” And before he knows what has happened, she has escorted him to the security door, and he is the other side of it and he seems to have signed something, so that’s probably all right.

As Kate stalks back into the office, she hears the TARDIS again. “Oh, for goodness sake, what now? Osgood, I thought I told you to - oh, hello!”

Standing before her is a woman she doesn’t recognise. A bit younger than her, tall, slim, attractive. _Very_ attractive, she thinks. She's got a sort of glow to her...

“I'm sorry, who are you? How did you get past security?”

The woman unlocks an invisible padlock and unzips her mouth.

“Hello, Commander Stewart. I'm here for my ten thirty.”


End file.
